Best Testing Practices – Where to Start?

One of the most important steps in choosing a parsing provider is deciding on a proper testing strategy and using the best testing practices during the process. It all begins with choosing test resumes and CVs that are both ‘real’ and indicative of your target industry vertical.

What is a ‘real’ resume?

A ‘real’ résumé is one that does not contain fake or poorly disguised data. For instance, one might create a fake name and address such as the following:

First Last
23 First Street
Anywhere, US 12345
555-555-5555

While the phone number and the first line of the address will parse correctly, the parser will not recognize “First Last” as a valid name and will be quite right about it. The same will happen with the town name. The parser will correctly decide that it is not presented with a well formed address. The address will not parse out as the town Anywhere does not exist. At HireAbility we believe that the data you parse belongs to you. We do not store your data unless it is requested by you that we do so. As a result,  you do not need to use fake or disguised data for testing and can get the best results from your testing suite of résumés and CVs.

If you still would rather disguise your data.

If you still feel more comfortable disguising the contact data, please, use “life-like” replacement data. The following example of a disguised contact data would be appropriate:

John Doe
1 Main Street
Boston, MA 02222
555-555-5555

Other examples of improperly disguised data.

Other incorrect data might include made-up company names such as Company 1, Client 1, Any Company, etc. An appropriate way to disguise a company name would be to use something like Mycomp Inc. The same is true for school names, job titles, and other resume/CV components.

Use the full amount of testing credits.

Testing one or two resumes is not going to give you much information regarding a parser’s accuracy. In other words, testing only a handful of résumés is not statistically valid. We offer a good number of testing credits to establish a baseline for your testing process. Use the full amount afforded to you by testing a number of valid résumés and CVs across the range of industries and languages that pertain most to your users.

Some Resume Tips.

As your resume will be read by a computer program and not a human being, you should make certain adjustment to the format of your resume.

First, realize that colors, fonts, images and other formatting features that make a resume or CV look nice to a human eye, do not matter to a computer. And in most cases they just confuse the computer program. Remember, before your resume or CV can be “consumed” by a computer program, it needs to be converted to plain text. All of the formatting except line breaks will be lost.

Here are some general and some particular tips to apply when constructing your resume:

  • Make your resume or CV as simple and plain as possible.
  • State your name and contact information on top of the resume and not in a Word header, footer or a text box.
  • Try not to use a columned layout whether your resume or CV is a PDF or a Word document.
  • Separate sections in your resume clearly.
  • Use clear headers for each section: Education, Work Experience, Additional Information, etc

  • Try to keep the same format throughout each section. For instance, in your Employment Section, if your chosen format for each employment record is

    Dates / Company Name / Job Title / Location / Job Description

    try to keep the rest of your employment data in this format, in each of your employment records.

  • Use complete company names that include identifying words such as Inc., Co., LTD, LLC, etc

  • Use complete job titles. For instance:

    use “Senior Account Executive” instead of “Sr. Account Exe.”

    use “Business Development Manager” instead of “Business Dev. Manager.”

Ask Questions.

Our team is always happy to assist you during the testing process. Do you have questions about API integration or on why a particular résumé parsed the way it did? Reach out and request help. You can reach out via email (support@hireability.com) or use our client login feature. HireAbility has been parsing résumés, CVs and job postings for 18 years and we have worked with hundreds of companies globally. We will answer all your questions and will get your team parsing résumés and CVs quickly.

Would you like to learn more about best testing practices?

Learn more about best testing practices and how to write resumes that parsers understand in our blog.